Yoni Applebaum contends It’s Time to Impeach Trump (“Starting the process will rein in a president who is undermining American ideals—and bring the debate about his fitness for office into Congress, where it belongs”):
On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump stood on the steps of the Capitol, raised his right hand, and solemnly swore to faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and, to the best of his ability, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He has not kept that promise.
Instead, he has mounted a concerted challenge to the separation of powers, to the rule of law, and to the civil liberties enshrined in our founding documents. He has purposefully inflamed America’s divisions. He has set himself against the American idea, the principle that all of us—of every race, gender, and creed—are created equal.
This is not a partisan judgment. Many of the president’s fiercest critics have emerged from within his own party. Even officials and observers who support his policies are appalled by his pronouncements, and those who have the most firsthand experience of governance are also the most alarmed by how Trump is governing.
….
Trump’s bipartisan critics are not merely arguing that he has dishonored the presidency. The most serious charge is that he is attacking the bedrock of American democracy.
For those of us who are Never Trump, our early opposition has proved well-founded. Impeachment, removal from office, and indictment on federal or state charges if prosecutors find a sufficient basis: that should be Trump’s fate.
Applebaum considers Andrew Johnson’s impeachment as a precedent for action against Trump.
So it is.